Rugby League: Vagana provides the old head

By DAVE HADFIELD

There is a subtle difference between the present New Zealand tour and those of the past. Where recent parties have been liberally sprinkled with players familiar to British supporters from stints in this country, there is just one returnee in the group who are preparing for the three-test series against Great Britain.

But if that puts a burden of extra responsibility on the shoulders of Nigel Vagana, it is not showing yet.

Vagana spent a season at Warrington in 1997 - he was the one real success to come out of a Polynesian invasion of the club, with his haul of 22 tries in 30 games the best in Super League that season - but it is since returning to the Southern Hemisphere that he has blossomed into one of the world's most dangerous centres.

"I enjoyed my time at Warrington, but we were battling against relegation," he says.

"Playing in Sydney for the Bulldogs has been like the other end of the scale - a whole different game."

In his two seasons with Canterbury, who signed him from what was then the Auckland Warriors, he has become the most potent try-scorer in the NRL. But there has been a down-side - one which has left him more determined than ever to make his mark on this tour.

The Bulldogs salary cap scandal left the side finishing the season placed at the bottom of the table and out of the playoffs - something Vagana describes, with commendable restraint, as "a bit of a shame".

"We worked so hard all year and some guys in the office made a mistake for which the players got punished.

"We've moved on from it now. We've all signed on again for next year and we'll have to put it right then.

"For me, it's lucky I'm involved in this tour, because it has taken my mind off what's happened."

Vagana has had a special role to play in the opening stages of the tour. At Hull in the opening match, he was - apart from Castleford forward Michael Smith - the only Kiwi with any extensive experience of British conditions and, particularly relevant that night, the atmosphere of British grounds.

"The coach hasn't put any extra responsibility on me, but I'll take it on board anyway," he says.

"I'll do what I can to help the team out."

Vagana could turn out to have been part of the last great influx of New Zealanders into the game in Britain. Circumstances back home have changed radically.

"Because the New Zealand Warriors have been going so well, a lot of players now have the ambition to play for them, rather than following careers overseas."

There are so many Warriors on this tour that there might be a risk of the squad splitting into two camps: the Warriors and the rest, including those, like Vagana, who play for Australian clubs.

He dismisses the notion.

"From the outside, it could look that way, but there's nothing like that. Everyone gets on like a house on fire."

Surrounded by talented, but slightly raw, young Warriors in their early 20s, such as Clinton Toopi, Francis Meli and Henry Fa'afili, Vagana is, at 27, the elder statesman of the backline.

Although he will be marshalling that new talent, one of his main functions involves making sure the Kiwis' flashy handling results in something tangible on the scoreboard by scoring the tries, of which he already has 10 in tests.

He has an impressive repertoire of after-try celebrations and had his first chance to wheel one out at The Boulevard, when the Kiwis were patchy in the first half against Hull, but often brilliant in the second.

"[Coach] Gary Freeman has told us to enjoy ourselves, but a few of us have pushed the pass a bit too much. We have to time it a bit more, to get a feel for the game early on.

"We aren't going to stop enjoying ourselves; it's just a case of picking our time to do it."

With little in the way of reserve strength in the backs in his depleted party, Freeman will be asking a lot of players such as Vagana, who says he is expecting a tough six weeks in Britain.

He still hopes to have time to look up some old friends, among them British star Paul Sculthorpe, a team-mate at Warrington five years ago, who has, like him, gone from strength to strength.

Vagana has even hinted at returning for a second stint in England, after the remaining year of his contract with Canterbury.

But he would be coming back here as a very different proposition from the young man of 1997.

Back then he was a player about to give a taste of his potential. Now, as Great Britain could find out in the test series, he is something very close to the finished product.

- INDEPENDENT